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Apparatus to aid using Expert Drum with roller base

This might be overkill for some, but I found that this homemade apparatus has made it much easier for me to use a Jobo Expert Drum on my Beseler roller base.

My problem using the drums (especially #3005) on a roller base was that it seemed that I needed six hands to keep the drum on the base and pour in the chemicals. Even if the back of the drum was blocked, sometimes the drum walked forward off the base. Once, my 3005 walked off forward, and why that drum did not break, I don't have any idea. Just lucky. I stressed out every time I tried this process.

So, I devised this crazy contraption that takes the place of the four hands I don't have. The bill of materials:
-1 liter funnel with valve, tube, and mesh filter (from Autozone)
-1 2x12 (all the rest of the materials are available from Home Depot)
-1 dowel
-4 leveling feet (to level the apparatus on the table)
-3 metal L brackets
-3 bolts
-3 wing nuts
-2 hose clamps
-1 Long screw to hold the dowel securely to the board
-Spray Kilz primer to prevent the 2x12 from oozing sap
-Spray black appliance epoxy (durable and easily repels liquids)

The photo is pretty self-explanatory. The L brackets hold the drum in place. No walking forward or backward. The front brackets are fixed. There are two holes in the base for the rear bracket, one for use with the 3005 drum, the other with the 3010 drum. The dowel holds the funnel in place so you can use one hand to pour the chemicals and the other to hold the hose in the drum. I had to experiment a bit to determine where to set the valve on the funnel to get the proper flow so that it does not overwhelm the drum's ability to accept the chemicals.

The weakest link is the use of the hose clamps to hold the funnel to the dowel. It would be nice to easily remove the funnel from the dowel. I am working on this.

Anyway, I tried it all today, and it worked just fine. It might be overkill, but it worked out nicely for four 5x7s and one WP neg.

Re: Apparatus to aid using Expert Drum with roller base

Originally Posted by venchka

When do you start and stop timing the developer?

When the chemicals are 100% in the tank.

However, it should be noted that I use a two bath developer and time in the soup is not critical. I don't think this matters too much though. As long as you do it the same way every time, and then dial in your processes around this practice everything should be fine. This is especially true since the funnel I stumbled onto has a valve that allows you to control the rate of flow into the drum, so the time it takes to load the chemicals should be consistent.

Re: Apparatus to aid using Expert Drum with roller base

I forgot to include another item in the bill of materials:
-Rectangular "Magic Sliders" (which stick to the face of the L brackets so that they will not wear on the tank where they contact it.) One package contains 4 sliders.

The sliders came with their own double sided adhesive pads to hold them in place, but they did not work. The adhesive stuck to the L bracket but not the slider! I put some double sided carpet tape on the sliders, and the are now holding just fine.

Re: Apparatus to aid using Expert Drum with roller base

Wayne,

2 baths are not for everyone. For me, however, they are great. I have often wondered why there are so many divergent feelings about this. Perhaps it is because I am in California, and often photograph in bright, contrasty situations. The inherent compensating nature of these developers certainly helps. However, I still use a 2 bath if the day was cloudy and overcast. Except in rare occasions, my negatives print on grade 2 or grade 3 paper, so I am happy. If I need to do + development, I can gain one grade of paper by intensifying the neg in selenium or use a higher concentration of accelerator in the B bath. Highlights rarely blow out with the standard concentration of accelerator in the second bath, and if I expose things properly, I get very nice shadow detail. The Thornton 2 bath that I use is a metol only developer, so the negs are also sharp.

I find that these developers free me from the tyranny of precise timing, which makes life much easier. I can let the drum spin a bit longer or leave the negs in the slosher without much concern about screwing up my negs. Testing is also easier. I just expose 4 sheets of film at various IEs, in open shade on a sunny day. I make sure that there is some area with shadows and highlights in the scene. I develop them together, and then choose the IE that looks best in the shadows.

One thing to consider if using rotary processing and a 2 bath. Sandy King wrote an article in VC mag about 1 year ago in which he detailed how Diafine or Divided D23 could be used to make full scale negatives for scanning. He tested both tray and rotary processing. He found that you had to dilute both developers 1:1 when rotary processing to achieve the same results achieved when tray processing. Others have posted that they pre-soak to dilute the A bath to reduce contrast. Others have reported that since the developer in the A bath is exhausted and not replenished while the B bath is working, rotary processing does not result in increased contrast.

I have to do some testing, but I have a feeling if Sandy found this in his testing, it must exist. First I am going to compare my negs from yesterday with some I did during my rotary processing "disaster period." The uneven streaks, etc. I obtained then probably won't impact the overall densities. Then I will run some test sheets through both diluted and undiluted.